Thanks Bomber, it is great to have your work acknowledged by another translator.

Yup. I know how that is, (despite it being believably seldom because of how much I suck at translating.) You took the JPLT right? I've been considering it, but I've been scared cause I doubt I know as much as I think I know.

January 05, 2012, 04:51 AM

aegon-rokudo

Re: Aegon-rokudo's thread

I got the jlpt n4 last year, as a concrete base for my japanese skill, and this december I took the n2. I'm not sure I passed it because the reformed exam has something like the 20% 30% of more things to study and then is 20% 30% more difficult.

They wrote "around the previous level 2 difficulty" that should be around 1000 kanjies and 6000 words. The problem is that I studied 1250 kanjies, 250 more than the acceptable number, and I saw kanjies that I did not recognized.

nevertheless I hope that I barelly passed it. In any case right now I'm studing the second part of jouyou kanjies with relative vocabolary, and by the end of march I should be around the 1450 kanjies, so if I did not pass, next time(in july I hope) I will be sure to pass.

How many kanjies do you know?
Depending from that I can suggest you the level you should be able to pass without too much study.

January 05, 2012, 09:48 AM

Raenef

Re: Aegon-rokudo's thread

gl aegon *press thumbs*

January 05, 2012, 12:52 PM

Bomber D Rufi

Re: Aegon-rokudo's thread

Quote:

Originally Posted by aegon-rokudo

I got the jlpt n4 last year, as a concrete base for my japanese skill, and this december I took the n2. I'm not sure I passed it because the reformed exam has something like the 20% 30% of more things to study and then is 20% 30% more difficult.

They wrote "around the previous level 2 difficulty" that should be around 1000 kanjies and 6000 words. The problem is that I studied 1250 kanjies, 250 more than the acceptable number, and I saw kanjies that I did not recognized.

nevertheless I hope that I barelly passed it. In any case right now I'm studing the second part of jouyou kanjies with relative vocabolary, and by the end of march I should be around the 1450 kanjies, so if I did not pass, next time(in july I hope) I will be sure to pass.

How many kanjies do you know?
Depending from that I can suggest you the level you should be able to pass without too much study.

Hmm...I actually never thought of a 'number' of Kanji I know...I would say maybe pushing 800-100 tops. It's probably a bit less than that since I do need dictonaries sometimes, but I can read newspapers and whatnot with relative ease. So to be fair, probably 500-900. I did mainly teach myself though (great, I sound like I'm making excuses.) I want to take it soon, so I know where I stand even if I fail.

January 05, 2012, 02:36 PM

aegon-rokudo

Re: Aegon-rokudo's thread

Hum... probably you have a more practical knowledge of japanese than me, just as I expected. I still have problems with newspapers because I focused on the kanjies instead of the vocabulary.
Anyway you should be able to pass level n3 with ease, you just need to make sure of the kanji you know and try 2 or 3 mock exams in order to get a feeling of the real exam.
With a more dedicated study, you could easily best even the level n2, but that depends on the time you have and your personal preferencies. You should study and learn a lot of kanjies, around 500 I think. But you should be ok from the vocabulary point of view, for the listening I don't know, but the principal problem is reading, but if you are able to read newspapers you should not have problems

January 07, 2012, 12:19 AM

kendama

Re: Aegon-rokudo's thread

Hi, sorry, to bother you, and a happy New Year.

Do you know whether Break Blade has been cancelled, or whether its magazine has run out of circulation?

January 07, 2012, 03:52 AM

aegon-rokudo

Re: Aegon-rokudo's thread

Sometimes the author takes a break to do a long chapter, the same thing happened when he was doing the final chapters of the royal city's siege. In that case he took something like 3 or 4 months. I checked the manga's blog and they say that it is still serializzed

February 12, 2012, 10:46 PM

shyneshadow

Re: Aegon-rokudo's thread

I want to ask your opinion on something. A lot of people have complained about History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi's recent story arcs lacking in quality in comparison with around the first 300 to 350 chapters. Some of these complaints I agree with some I don't. In fact, a lot of former fans have given up on the series itself. Do you feel that this is in some way true that the series' quality has declined in recent years? In what ways would you say it has or hasn't? And if you could make changes that would, in your opinion, improve the series what would they be?

Thank you for your time.

February 14, 2012, 03:09 AM

aegon-rokudo

Re: Aegon-rokudo's thread

Quote:

Originally Posted by shyneshadow

I want to ask your opinion on something. A lot of people have complained about History's Strongest Disciple Kenichi's recent story arcs lacking in quality in comparison with around the first 300 to 350 chapters. Some of these complaints I agree with some I don't. In fact, a lot of former fans have given up on the series itself. Do you feel that this is in some way true that the series' quality has declined in recent years? In what ways would you say it has or hasn't? And if you could make changes that would, in your opinion, improve the series what would they be?

Thank you for your time.

They were talking about the following arcs: kenichi Vs takeda, Ma Vs diego, kenichi Vs Ethan, weapon division, then the two small arcs about the glasses guy and freya and finally the okinawa arc.

I have to agree that the best part of the manga was the DoD arc but we are talking of the chapters following that part.

In my opinon the worst part of the entire manga is Ma Vs diego, not only because their fight was a little boring but also because the art was lacking with strange poses for the female characthers and very exagerated breasts(more than the normal I mean). The following arcs were ok, but the okinawa arc, the story between Apachai and Agaaard, their fight and then the fight between kenichi and koukin was excellent, one of the best parts of the manga.

If I have to judge the the chapters that goes from 300 to 400, I would say that it gets really bad around chapter 320 then gets gradually better until the okinawa arcs that is spendid. After Apa Vs agaard it return to be ok, but sakaki Vs hongo(especially when the flash back is over) and miu's kidnapping are very entertaining.

The principal problem with these people is that they don't realizze that a manga seems to be better if you are able to read several chapters in a day, instead of one every week. When you have a lot of information to process you forget about small(and bad) detail and you go forward in the reading. If you have only a chapter you get fixated over it, over analizze it found all the faults and say that it sucks.
It is a normal thing, but a lot of people don't realizze it.

February 14, 2012, 05:24 PM

shyneshadow

Re: Aegon-rokudo's thread

I definitely agree that the Okinawa arc was one of the best ones. Some people were complaining about the way Apachai was saved but come on man it's Apachai. I mean yeah it was a bit silly but you can't kill him off right?

I can't really agree with people pointing out the flaws because their reading one chapter at a time versus reading a multitude of chapters. I think if people really love reading something they're going to go back and reread the volumes and those flaws will become apparent to them anyway. This is especially true if they're buying the volumes because then they'd want their money's worth. But then again it's only released in Japan right now and I don't know anyone from Japan complaining. At least I think it's only released in Japan. I have a couple of more questions if you don't mind.

What about the issue of the ecchi-ness intruding on the climactic battles? Do you feel they take away from the fight or add to it in some cases or could you take it or leave it?

And where do you think that the author should take Kenichi in terms of story for the rest of the Miu rescue arc and there on afterward?
I personally feel that an introduction to the darkness of the story could really do wonders for it.

Also what do you think about the new OVA so far, looks great right?

Again thank you for your time and attention and I apologize if this is a bit troublesome.

February 14, 2012, 06:39 PM

aegon-rokudo

Re: Aegon-rokudo's thread

Quote:

Originally Posted by shyneshadow

I definitely agree that the Okinawa arc was one of the best ones. Some people were complaining about the way Apachai was saved but come on man it's Apachai. I mean yeah it was a bit silly but you can't kill him off right?

I can't really agree with people pointing out the flaws because their reading one chapter at a time versus reading a multitude of chapters. I think if people really love reading something they're going to go back and reread the volumes and those flaws will become apparent to them anyway. This is especially true if they're buying the volumes because then they'd want their money's worth. But then again it's only released in Japan right now and I don't know anyone from Japan complaining. At least I think it's only released in Japan. I have a couple of more questions if you don't mind.

What about the issue of the ecchi-ness intruding on the climactic battles? Do you feel they take away from the fight or add to it in some cases or could you take it or leave it?

And where do you think that the author should take Kenichi in terms of story for the rest of the Miu rescue arc and there on afterward?
I personally feel that an introduction to the darkness of the story could really do wonders for it.

Also what do you think about the new OVA so far, looks great right?

Again thank you for your time and attention and I apologize if this is a bit troublesome.

Well the fact that apachai was revived is not a big deal in my opinion. All the authors arrived in a certain point of their works have to decide if kill off characters or not, and the fact that apachai survived did not seem out of the place in the manga.

About the thing of poiting out flaws, you don't consider that half of the people that read a manga just look at the pictures and among the other half that have interest in the actual story only few of them re-read the manga. Hell, I heard of people that began to read kenichi when mangastream picked it up and then stopped reading it just because the Mangastream dropped it. Plus even if you reread it, you are less inclined to find out the flaws because you like the manga to a certain extent. I am curious if the people that affirmed that kenichi sucks at least reread it 2 or 3 times(I should be around 7-8 especially from chap 150 to chap 300)
Plus about the fact of reading a bunch of chapters instead of one every week, when you have a lot of chapters in your hands, you are able to see the big picture better.
For example take hongo Vs sakaki's fight. If you read that battle on a weekly basis you are over annoyed by the heavy presence of flashbacks that breaks the rithm of the fight. I read of people complaining about it and even if I found their complains a little exagerated, I have to say that I agreed with them for the most part. But I'm sure that if one reads those 10 chapters altogether now, the balance between flash backs and actual fight plus the final scenes when the fight gets to his peak and the final apparition of junazard would make it something on the level of apachai and agaard fight.

About the ecchi, I have admit that it is a little exagerated. It is not like I'm particularly annoyed by it as I'm accustomed to this things, but I find them negative for the manga for 2 main reasons:
1) the excessive ecchi precludes the manga for a wider audience. Let's not forget that kenichi is a shonen, a manga that should be adressed to male kids from the 8-9 years to 18 years. The excessive level of ecchiness precludes young fans those under 14 years(it is a guess not sure) to read it, and the new and young fans those that will enlange the fanbase. As a matter of facts, even if kenichi is one of the most viewed manga on the web, it doesn't have great numbers in the volume sales in japan.
2) the second reason is the quality of the artwork. the majority of men out there like to see big breasts and bouncy asses especially if you are a teenager, that is probably the cause of success of some mangas like bleach or fairy tail. The level of big breastes in kenichi trascended so much that even someone like me accustomed to such unrealistic proportions finds the girls to be deformed. There are some miu drawings out there where her breasts are larger that her back. No matter what kind of martial artist you are, your back should snap with a pair of those things. On the other side men, even if full of muscles, are well enough proportioned.
If matsuena would return to the level of plumpage of the DoD or more or less around there, I think it would be better for his art.

For the future of manga, in the current arc we have only to see miu kick some asses here and there, see if hongo will be able to fight the demon fist god even if injuried. In my opinion junazard will kick hongo's ass(he is injured remember?) and the one shadow will personally interfere.
After this arc we still have, half of the one shadows nine first still alive and kicking, but what I'm looking forward to will be the arc against kensei's titans. In my opinion matsuena will give us something like a 100 chapters long arc where the shinpaku alliance will fight against them, something like kensei's old experiment Vs kensei's new experiment.
Finally I think that kenichi will be probably over when he will not be disciple anymore, but he will enter masterdoom. That would mean after he defeats all yomi disciples and yami is definitelly defeated. If matsuena doesn't want to stop there, there could be some new organizzation of young masters kenichi would fight against, but if the authors intends to drag this manga until he is on the elder level, I think we will need another 100 volumes to see the end of the manga.

Finally for the OAV, I would have prefered a TV show. Maybe the quality would not have been so excellent, but a TV series would have increased the series popularity, and anyone wants to see the fight between Shou and kenichi animated!

February 16, 2012, 04:01 AM

shyneshadow

Re: Aegon-rokudo's thread

But you didn't think it was anticlimatic how they saved Apachai? It had built up to this big dramatic moment and then it kind of deflated.

Also, I think there is a bit of contradiction in what you said. You said people tend to overanalyze it and point out the flaws that way but then that said some people only look at the pictures. If the reason the people who only looked at the pictures said it sucked then why would it be because they overanalyzed it? In fact the people who only look at the pictures would be frustrated everytime Matsuena was spending time to tell the story. So why would they spend time complaining about something so particular like, in your example, the flashback of sakaki and hongou? It seems to me that the issue of people complaining about that is the fact that it was a fairly boring backstory. I mean Suzuki just wasn't an interesting enough character to keep our attention and the story behind had no real impact emotionally. So why read about a boring story when you could watch a really good fight? But then again the quality of the story is the responsibility of the writer. What made the okinawa arc so epic, in my opinion, was because we got an emotionally charged fight succeeding Apachai vs Agaard which was already an epic fight and a great finish to it as well. In Sakaki vs Hongo we got an epic fight and then story build-up for the next arc immediately following.
Plus, if you like the manga you are less inclined to find out the flaws even if you reread it? I can't agree with that at all. You notice anything good or bad when you go over it again no matter how much you like it. For example, I didn't even notice Miu's breast size changing until you mentioned it.

I'm not sure about your first reason for finding the ecchi negative for the manga. I'm assuming either you don't like the author trying to boost sells by using overexcessive ecchi in which case I wholy agree.

I very much agree with your second reason that a reduction would be better for the artwork. I also feel that if he chose better moments for ecchi he could even increase the story's quality. I considered another flaw in the Sakaki vs Hongo arc to be the unnecessary stripping of Miu's clothes. I was really drawn in when Junazard decided to kidnap Miu but when Matsuena stripped her of her clothing, it felt a little cartoonish and very much unnecessary. Now someone tried to make the argument that it made her seem more vulnerable for a monster like junazard to take her like that. It didn't change my opinion much but I gave it the benefit of the doubt. But now look at what's happening in the current arc. Miu's clothes are virtually gone again though half of them weren't there to begin with and Matsuena let us know with the extensive number of ass shots which I felt was worse this time because Miu doesn't have any underwear on. It leads me to believe that he's just trying to whore her out, which is a shame because Miu had been built up as such a deep and interesting female lead, one of the best ever in my opinion.

Also about the OVA I think that the author on his twitter account said we may get another series depending on how well the OVA sells this time, but that he's not sure. It makes sense because the first series wasn't that popular in Japan so I think they're time they're testing the waters to see how it goes.

February 21, 2012, 10:12 PM

prince immigrant

Re: Aegon-rokudo's thread

hi, Aegon-Rokudu, how are you!!
you are doing great job man, thanks for picking up Naruto and the other manga
keep up a good work!!
thanks again^^

February 25, 2012, 04:03 PM

aegon-rokudo

Re: Aegon-rokudo's thread

Quote:

Originally Posted by shyneshadow

But you didn't think it was anticlimatic how they saved Apachai? It had built up to this big dramatic moment and then it kind of deflated.

Also, I think there is a bit of contradiction in what you said. You said people tend to overanalyze it and point out the flaws that way but then that said some people only look at the pictures. If the reason the people who only looked at the pictures said it sucked then why would it be because they overanalyzed it? In fact the people who only look at the pictures would be frustrated everytime Matsuena was spending time to tell the story. So why would they spend time complaining about something so particular like, in your example, the flashback of sakaki and hongou? It seems to me that the issue of people complaining about that is the fact that it was a fairly boring backstory. I mean Suzuki just wasn't an interesting enough character to keep our attention and the story behind had no real impact emotionally. So why read about a boring story when you could watch a really good fight? But then again the quality of the story is the responsibility of the writer. What made the okinawa arc so epic, in my opinion, was because we got an emotionally charged fight succeeding Apachai vs Agaard which was already an epic fight and a great finish to it as well. In Sakaki vs Hongo we got an epic fight and then story build-up for the next arc immediately following.
Plus, if you like the manga you are less inclined to find out the flaws even if you reread it? I can't agree with that at all. You notice anything good or bad when you go over it again no matter how much you like it. For example, I didn't even notice Miu's breast size changing until you mentioned it.

I'm not sure about your first reason for finding the ecchi negative for the manga. I'm assuming either you don't like the author trying to boost sells by using overexcessive ecchi in which case I wholy agree.

I very much agree with your second reason that a reduction would be better for the artwork. I also feel that if he chose better moments for ecchi he could even increase the story's quality. I considered another flaw in the Sakaki vs Hongo arc to be the unnecessary stripping of Miu's clothes. I was really drawn in when Junazard decided to kidnap Miu but when Matsuena stripped her of her clothing, it felt a little cartoonish and very much unnecessary. Now someone tried to make the argument that it made her seem more vulnerable for a monster like junazard to take her like that. It didn't change my opinion much but I gave it the benefit of the doubt. But now look at what's happening in the current arc. Miu's clothes are virtually gone again though half of them weren't there to begin with and Matsuena let us know with the extensive number of ass shots which I felt was worse this time because Miu doesn't have any underwear on. It leads me to believe that he's just trying to whore her out, which is a shame because Miu had been built up as such a deep and interesting female lead, one of the best ever in my opinion.

Also about the OVA I think that the author on his twitter account said we may get another series depending on how well the OVA sells this time, but that he's not sure. It makes sense because the first series wasn't that popular in Japan so I think they're time they're testing the waters to see how it goes.

About apachai's death to be sincere I thought like this at the time: he dies? ok, cool the author has the courage to kill one of his principal caracthers and that could bring to interesting developments. He doesn't die? ok, cool it is a real pity if apachai dies, plus it is not too much outside of the manga atmosphere because this is not a drammatic manga.

About reader complaints, I think that it is a normal thing after all. The difference is between those who complain even for small flaws and those who don't make a big deal about them. There are also complains in certain parts based especially on personal tastes. In my opinion suzuki flash-back was good, the principal problem was that the flash-back broke the flow of the fight. Two pages of fight and then, in the moment you were entering in the mood for the fight here comes the flash back. And then you think "dammit, I waited a whole week for these 17 pages, who the hell cares about the blonde guy that will die, let me see Sakaki and Hongo kick some asses!!!".

From here it comes what I tried to say. If you have the whole volume were you can read the flash-back and then see hongo and sakaki kick asses you will not have this sensation that the single chapter was "wasted" on the flash-back. I hope I was clearer now, it is a sensation you get, and it is something difficult to explain with words.

About fanservice you are right, and I think that the majority of persons agree with you. Random breasts and asses really kills the tension of a fight.

April 10, 2012, 10:05 AM

Rinneganp

Re: Aegon-rokudo's thread

hi, aegon-rokudo,
I just wanted to ask, what's your fav all time manga? ^_^